“Gordola, Switzerland, Jewish Refugees from Austria working in a shoe-making workshop”
Along with all the other crises immediately following WWII, the issue of labor rose to the forefront of these discussions of resettlement and economic growth. The photo that I chose is of refugees working in a shoe factory. The way that the photo is not focused on one individual allows the person viewing the photo to project faces and personalities onto these people and I think that is very powerful. It really creates the image of the anonymous worker tirelessly slaving away to contribute.
In reading historian Gerard Cohen’s Chapter entitled “Europe’s Displaced Persons in the Postwar Order” in his book In War’s Wake, I was struck by the way in which he described these populations of refugees as commodities to be redistributed by the international community. This redistribution took place under the guise of meeting both the needs of the refugees and the host nations, particularly to relive pressure from Europe (Cohen, 103). However, Cohen has no qualms about addressing the fact that this redistribution was largely motivated by maintaining control over populations, specifically those in Asia (102). This discussion of moving entire populations around as though they are a resource to be drawn from by the international community reminded me of some of the literature that I’d read regarding refugees in this context including Tara Zahra’s ‘A Human Treasure’ and additional readings from Cohen’s book.
One quote from Cohen’s chapter that further illustrates this manipulation of these individuals is from page 105 in the text. He states, “Eileen Egan, a volunteer for the Catholic Refugee Service, realized, however, that the Belgian labor scheme was not motivated by humanitarianism: ‘Cattle market deals, said welfare workers as truckloads of able-bodied males rolled out of camps. But realism told us that war-depleted countries could not begin immigration schemes with a welfare approach.’” The description of people as cattle was very powerful because it really shows the way in which these people very viewed.
I also found a lot of overlap between this article and discussions of economic reconstruction following the war. One line in Cohen’s chapter that stuck out to me in particular was when he said, “[DPs] neither consume nor produce at a time when all men and women should be associated with the tasks of reconstruction and production?” From this quote, it is evident that the DPs were even seen as having a responsibility to help reconstruct the economy. I hadn’t considered this before as an expectation that would be placed on people who were without homes and jobs.
Photo: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/491314640570383902/
More on Gerard Cohen: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/in-wars-wake-9780195399684?cc=us&lang=en&
It’s sad that, as Eileen Egan said in Cohen’s book, the repatriation of DPs was not “motivated by humanitarianism” because all they wanted was the bodies to provide labor.
I also found the description of people as cattle to be rather moving. It really brings to question at what point are governments becoming too objective and at what point do the ends not justify the means? I believe that line was crossed here.
The description of people as cattle is very moving and something that I must have looked over when reading the book myself. Your point on the DP’s being expected to participate in the rebuilding is intriguing since they were mention as cattle just before. It’s not really something that people think about when they think of displaced person following World War Two.